Categoryzen

It’s one of those yawning evenings, when the head starts to force its way back, questioning previous life decisions. Wondering about ‘what if’s. “I’ll be following you still, oh my dear head”, whispered the heart, “even though we both know certain events had other opportunities, too”.

Full of blind self-confidence the head keeps throwing well thought through words, sentences and phrases towards its fellow warm friend below. Trying to convince the heart that every decision made by the head, turned out as it should have been. With a mere look, full of genuine warmth and truth, the words turned into meaningless and empty letters so the head started to see what the heart seemed to be worried about.

He talks about re-thinking the way we think about systems. The take away for me was in order to understand systems better and easier in general is to visualize its behaviour under multiple perspectives. Also I like the following inspiring quote:

“Just as there are odors that dogs can smell and we cannot, as well as sounds that dogs can hear and we cannot, so too there are wavelengths of light we cannot see and flavors we cannot taste. Why then, given our brains wired the way they are, does the remark, “Perhaps there are thoughts we cannot think,” surprise you?” by Richard Hamming

The second talk is Designing Journey by Jenova Chen (video). Where Jenova introduces a new kind of way to interact with people online at the GDC 2013. His approach is to reduce every noise that would ultimately lead to toxically hating, exploiting and mistrusting your fellow players which is sort of a counterproductive and an unhealthy gameplay overall.

GDC overview: “It took thatgamecompany three years to develop a two-hour long video game. Many high-level experimental ideas were tested and failed, and many lessons were learned during the design and production of the game. 12 months have passed since the game was launched, and we would like to share what we learned with you. This talk will give you the insight into the process thatgamecompany took to come up the original concept for Journey, how we polished and executed the design to realize an emotional arc, and most importantly, the difficult lessons we learned throughout the process.”

Here is gameplay video where a player wanders around and meeting up with a stranger in order to interactivly play walk together.

The takeaway for me is that playing together with other people can actually leave you behind with a very welcoming and healthy feeling if a game is actually designed for social interaction.

I stumbled upon Project Euler once more since I needed multiple solutions in different languages for a random problem. Til did show it to me like 2 years ago and since then they made these dynamic profil images. Not exactly beautiful, but I wanted to post it on my blog anyway, haha. All of the problems are itself sort of unrelated to anything, however the 10 seconds rule – which is the maximum time your program should take getting the solution – will lead you into new directions of efficient programming. You can even improve your knowledge about other programming languages while implementing the solution in more than only one language.

The problem with resolutions is that they last until prooven wrong. Although the validating thinking process doesn’t get triggered when critically variables change.

Life is too short – everyone knows it but only few do understand or actually live up to it. Too much will be done ‘later’ or ‘next time’. Chances are most of it will never happen. Regrets collect. This makes me think a lot actually. I like to think of my grandfather as if he’d said something like this before he died:

I’ve learned that motel mattresses are better on the side away from the phone. Age 50

I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a man by the way he handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights. Age 52

I’ve learned that keeping a vegetable garden is worth a medicine cabinet full of pills. Age 52

I’ve learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you miss them terribly after they die. Age 53

I’ve learned that making a living is not the same thing as making a life. Age 58

I’ve learned that if you want to do something positive for your children, work to improve your marriage. Age 61

I’ve learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance. Age 62

I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catchers mitt on both hands. You need to be able to throw something back. Age 64

I’ve learned that if you pursue happiness, it will elude you. But if you focus on your family, the needs of others, your work, meeting new people and doing the very best you can, happiness will find you. Age 65

I’ve learned that whenever I decide something with kindness, I usually make the right decision. Age 66

I’ve learned that everyone can use a prayer. Age 72

I’ve learned that it pays to believe in miracles. And to tell the truth, I’ve seen several. Age 75

I’ve learned that even when I have pains, I don’t have to be one. Age 82

I’ve learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love that human touch – holding hands, a warm hug or just a friendly pat on the back. Age 85

I’ve learned that I still have a lot to learn. Age 92

I’ve learned that you should pass this on to someone you care about. Sometimes they just need a little something to make them smile.

It always brings up a smile on my lips whenever I read this. It reminds me that – despite the public believe – humans are good beings. That’s what I choose to believe anyway. So the question remains: What kind of person do I want to be?